One of my favorite pieces of fiction is Theft in a Pastry Shop by Italo Calvino. The plot follows characters as they attempt to rob a bakery in the middle of the night. It is not until they are inside the shop that the thieves realize they chose to hit a pastry store. They find themselves completely overwhelmed with gastronomic lust, succumbing to the sweet allure of the seemingly endless layer cakes, roulades, trifles, and tarts. Riotous gorging and much madcap hilarity ensues.
When you first walk into Kim’s Bakery in Chesterfield or Diana’s Bakery on Cherokee you, too, may find yourself overwhelmed with desire to devour all the colorful, masterfully prepared treats that fill the shop. This month we visit bakeries representative of countries far and wide from Taiwan to Bosnia to Mexico. Each country produces baked goods echo their history, place, and people. The bakers who work at these local shops are responsible for sharing what may be the first and only exposure some people have to their culture. What they are sharing is both delicious and prepared with great pride.
1. ) The Longan Walnut Bread at The Foundry Bakery
Odds are that when you visit The Foundry Bakery in Maryland Heights, you’ll be greeted by the soft spoken Taiwanese owner and baker, Ray Yeh. He’ll ask you about your bakery purchase or your tea or fruit milk drink selection and if you’ve been to the bakery before. It’s then you’ll learn, if you ask, about Yeh’s fascinating and unique journey. He’ll tell you he grew up in the Bay Area and moved to St. Louis to attend grad school at Washington University studying molecular genetics. He’ll tell you about how he became fascinated, obsessed even, with the science of baking and breads. After he shares some esoteric sugar facts with you he’ll explain that the scientific procedure in a lab mirrors the baking procedure in a kitchen. Yeh is an engaging gentleman but you’ll want to pull yourself away long enough to buy a loaf or two of his bread or a few buns or maybe one of the popular Taiwanese pineapple gems. His longan walnut bread is an outstanding achievement. Yeh smokes the Taiwanese longan fruit and then pairs them with meaty English walnuts in a bread that is smoky and rich with notes of molasses and dried currants. What makes Yeh’s bread most remarkable is the unique crumb which is tender and has a wonderful unexpected bounce to it. It is unlike any other bread in St. Louis. A mini loaf of the longan walnut bread costs $3.75 but you’ll want to pick up the full loaf for $6.95.
2.) The Cocadas at Diana’s Bakery
Diana’s Bakery on Cherokee St. is the place to go in St. Louis for the widest selection of fresh baked Mexican breads and pastries. Both walls of the shop are lined with tall glass cases holding countless pan dulce options from cookies, churros, empanadas, and donuts, to a variety of cakes. There are also flaky French inspired laminated pastries and jiggly custards and thick brownies. Tamales with red or green sauce are also made fresh daily while the very special tamales with mole are made on Saturdays only. A popular sweet favorite at Diana’s are the cocadas, or coconut macaroons. The large, lumpy, piped cookie has beautiful golden brown ruffled edges all over it. The outside of the cookie is sticky, crunchy and intensely chewy. The inside, while packed with coconut and sweet sugar, also has a pleasant and balanced saltiness to it as well. These cookies are dense and rich but somehow it’s no problem finishing off one of the hefty sweets. A macaroon will cost you one dollar and ten cents apiece.
3.) The Mocha Roll Cake at Kim’s Bakery
When you walk into Kim’s you are greeted by well over a hundred different baked sweets that are wrapped neatly in cellophane bags and lined up along a twenty foot long counter ready for you to place in your wicker basket. And that’s before you even make it to the pastry case. The Korean bakery makes not only sweet pastry but also savory items as well. Their korokos are golden little football shaped donuts, deep fried, and filled with ingredients like kimchi and beef or chicken curry. There is also a silly but still rather tasty hot dog pizza bread topped with a few dabs of ketchup. But it’s the fluffy cakes, rich custard and kawaii panda and Pokemon cookies that steal the show. Kim’s bakes exceptional sponge cake which is used as the base for their rolls and some layered desserts. The mocha roll in particular has a very delicate, ultra-fine crumb and tastes deeply of coffee and cocoa. The thin layer of light, silky icing adds just enough sweetness to satisfy but not overwhelm. A full sized mocha roll costs $1.99 a slice or $6.99 for a full roll.
4.) The Hurmašice at Zlatno Zito Bakery and Deli
Zlatno Zito (which translates to “golden grain”) makes incredible Bosnian breads. Loaves of white bread baguettes, boules, buns and pita fill the wooden shelves of the bakery side of the business. A no-frills restaurant, the “deli” part of Zlatno Zito, operates out of an adjoining shop. The breads all share the same eggshell thin, crisp golden crust which gives way to a pristine white crumb with great pull and chew. They use their breads in the deli to serve with items like their plump, juicy, cevapi and thick lentil soup. Look inside the refrigerated case and you’ll see that the bakers at Zlatno Zito are also making some tempting sweet baked goods. Baklava and layered cakes are stacked in clear clamshell containers. Next to them you’ll find the hurmašice, or hurma as they are also called - sugar syrup soaked cakes. The finger shaped pastries are topped with a bit of coconut and are literally swimming in sticky, clear, syrup. You might think that the cakes would be dreadfully heavy and wet but a taste will reveal a coconut perfumed cake that is surprisingly light even though the exterior is slick with syrup. Each hurmašice runs two dollars apiece.
5.) The Marranitos at Lilly’s Panaderia
Depending on where you are and who you speak to, marranitos, the Mexican cookies in the shape of a pig, are also called cochinos, puerquitos or cerditos. They are sometimes misleadingly called gingerbread pigs due to their deep golden brown appearance however they contain no ginger. Instead, they are flavored with unprocessed cane sugar, honey or molasses and a tiny bit of cinnamon. The pigs skins are then egg washed giving them a lacquered finish. You’ll find these porcine cookies lined up in a little glass case in the window of Lilly’s Panaderia on Cherokee. The Mexican bakery has been open just a little over a year but has become a neighborhood favorite for their breads, both savory and sweet. Their marranitos are the perfect partner for an afternoon cup of coffee or Abuelita hot cocoa. While crunchy on the outside, the inside of the cookie is soft and tastes faintly of sweetly bitter molasses. Once you start at the cookies snout it’s hard to stop nibbling until you find yourself at his tail. Each little piggy cost $1.60.
